> One of the things I'm proud of my grandfather for was that he learned 22 different dialects of Chinese for the purposes of doing business on a fairly wide sca

> One of the things I'm proud of my grandfather for was that he learned 22 different dialects of Chinese for the purposes of doing business on a fairly wide scale. While that's impressive, this only shows how much better it would have been for trade & business if Chinese people at the point spoke a single language. A businessman wouldn't have to learn 22 languages (quite a significant time investment), to have the same level of reach your grandfather did.